Pavese Festival
The Pavese Festival 2026 took place from 22 to 28 June in Santo Stefano Belbo, featuring a series of side events, both locally and across Italy. Its guiding theme – Ritorno all’uomo (back to humanity) – recalled the title of an article published by Cesare Pavese in May 1945, which includes the famous sentence: «Le parole sono il nostro mestiere […] Le parole sono tenere cose, intrattabili e vive, ma fatte per l’uomo e non l’uomo per loro» [Words are our craft. Words are tender things, unmanageable and alive, but made for man and not man for them]. An invitation to focus on words and their deepest meaning, and to use them carefully, remembering that «una cosa si salva sull’orrore, ed è l’apertura dell’uomo verso l’uomo» [one thing survives the horror: man’s openness to man].
The Festival over the years
The Pavese Festival was launched in 2001 as a tribute to Cesare Pavese in his hometown. Mixing literature, music, art and theatre, our Festival invites prominent guests from the Italian literary and music scene to explore Pavese’s themes and works in Santo Stefano Belbo. Its program also include book presentations, workshops (both for grown-ups and kids), talks, exhibitions, outdoors activities. Throughout the years, our Festival has turned into an event not just for Pavese’s enthusiasts but also for visitors of a unique vineyard landscape, acknowledged as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014. The Festival offers in fact the chance to discover the Langhe region that played such a kay role in shaping the author’s poetics.
Among the big names of its 25 past editions Avion Travel, Claudio Baglioni, Mario Biondi, Andrea Bosca, Boosta, Ezio Bosso, Vinicio Capossela, Colapesce & Dimartino, Cristina Donà, Marcello Fois, Georgi Gospodinov, Jhumpa Lahiri, Fiorella Mannoia, Neri Marcorè, Laura Morante, Pacifico, Omar Pedrini, Michele Placido, Alessandro Preziosi, Isabella Ragonese, Enrico Rava, Paola Turci, just to mention a few.